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A healthcare professional shows a test tube with blood for a serological test that can identify who has contracted Coronavirus, perhaps in an asymptomatic form and has produced antibodies, on April 20, 2020 in Milan, Italy.

Scientists and medical professionals across the globe are racing to better understand, and thereby combat, the novel coronavirus that has infected more than 2 million people worldwide. As they learn more, their understanding of the virus, and with it their language describing it, becomes more complex. "Antibodies," "serologic," "transfusion" and more are slowly becoming more commonly used terms. But what do they mean for the average person hoping for a treatment to the disease and bring their lives back to normal? Each has its place in understanding the puzzle that is a cure for COVID-19.What are the coronavirus antibodies?Antibodies are what makes a person immune. If you have antibodies for a disease, the disease can't infect like it did the first time. "Antibodies are proteins produced by the body to neutralize or destroy toxins or disease-carrying organisms," according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Once a disease infects you, your immune system gets to work learning and understanding the infection so it can find a way to fight it, much like medical professionals are currently doing right now, just more microscopic. When your body finds an antibody that works, it creates "instructions" to print more, much more. These antibodies are tailor-made to defeat an infection. However, they can defeat that one, specific infection. So if a new disease comes by, your body must learn to fight all over again. This is why you can get the cold more than once, as it's always technically a new strain of the cold (or other disease).This is why antibodies are so important. They could hold a blueprint for fighting the virus. If scientists can study antibodies from patients confirmed to have overcome the virus, they can use that information to create ways of helping others.How do people get tested for them?The CDC and public health partners are in the first stage of wide studies on community transmission of coronavirus. The first studies use serum samples collected in the state of Washington and New York City. The next stage will expand to include serologic testing in more areas with high populations of diagnosed infections, as well as studies of households in some states. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration says,"Serological tests measure the amount of antibodies or proteins present in the blood when the body is responding to a specific infection, like COVID-19."How does it help stopping/curbing the spread of COVID-19?For starters, it gives health care professionals crucial information about how many have been infected. You've no doubt seen the number of cases tick up and up over the last month. Huge as the numbers may be, some health care professionals estimate the number of infected is actually even higher, and that the number being reported is just the amount we're able to test presently. This also could tell us which individuals are no longer at risk, having already overcome the virus, and can return to work safely.You may have also heard talk about using the blood of coronavirus survivors to aid those who haven't yet been infected. Antibodies could be taken from someone who already fought the virus, and placed in someone whose immune system isn't prepared for infection. So if the virus were to infect them, the person's body would already have the blueprints necessary to fight the virus right from the start. The FDA approved an investigation into using this strategy back in March.

Scientists and medical professionals across the globe are racing to better understand, and thereby combat, the novel coronavirus that has infected more than 2 million people worldwide.

As they learn more, their understanding of the virus, and with it their language describing it, becomes more complex. "Antibodies," "serologic," "transfusion" and more are slowly becoming more commonly used terms. But what do they mean for the average person hoping for a treatment to the disease and bring their lives back to normal? Each has its place in understanding the puzzle that is a cure for COVID-19.

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What are the coronavirus antibodies?

Antibodies are what makes a person immune. If you have antibodies for a disease, the disease can't infect like it did the first time. "Antibodies are proteins produced by the body to neutralize or destroy toxins or disease-carrying organisms," according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Once a disease infects you, your immune system gets to work learning and understanding the infection so it can find a way to fight it, much like medical professionals are currently doing right now, just more microscopic. When your body finds an antibody that works, it creates "instructions" to print more, much more. These antibodies are tailor-made to defeat an infection. However, they can defeat that one, specific infection. So if a new disease comes by, your body must learn to fight all over again. This is why you can get the cold more than once, as it's always technically a new strain of the cold (or other disease).

This is why antibodies are so important. They could hold a blueprint for fighting the virus. If scientists can study antibodies from patients confirmed to have overcome the virus, they can use that information to create ways of helping others.

How does it help stopping/curbing the spread of COVID-19?

For starters, it gives health care professionals crucial information about how many have been infected. You've no doubt seen the number of cases tick up and up over the last month. Huge as the numbers may be, some health care professionals estimate the number of infected is actually even higher, and that the number being reported is just the amount we're able to test presently.

You may have also heard talk about using the blood of coronavirus survivors to aid those who haven't yet been infected. Antibodies could be taken from someone who already fought the virus, and placed in someone whose immune system isn't prepared for infection. So if the virus were to infect them, the person's body would already have the blueprints necessary to fight the virus right from the start. The FDA approved an investigation into using this strategy back in March.